


Out For Delivery

by nodere



Series: Pizza My Heart [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Dark Comedy, M/M, Pizza Courier Lance, Profanity, SHEITH - Freeform, Vampire Shiro, Werepire Lotor, Werewolf Keith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 05:57:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14372376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nodere/pseuds/nodere
Summary: Wherein Lance is detained, and Keith is impatient for his dinner.





	Out For Delivery

**Author's Note:**

> A continuation of the premises I set up in Pizza My Heart. I'd suggest reading that first.

Keith stared at the sputtering neon tubes of the dying bat light, clutching desperately at his whining stomach. Nearly two hours had passed since he had called in his order - Hawaiian with two servings of garlic cloves, in other words, the usual. Drawing his feet up onto the sofa, he wondered how much longer he’d have to wait. Patience had never been his virtue, although, to be fair, he was fairly certain that any bestower of virtues had taken one look and spurned him the day he was born.

He needed to think about something else, anything to keep his mind off his present situation. That and the music, hauntingly soulful as Shiro drew the bow across the strings of his treasured viola in an effortless charade. Listening to him practice always made Keith feel poignantly moody and irritable, or as Shiro would have more delicately put it, melancholic and pensive.

Keith was  _ hungry _ .

It wasn’t the insatiable lust of his vampire fiancée; it was the simple need of an organic being, a carbon-based life form of flesh and blood and some ancient magic most likely not of the Earth. His blood sugar had tanked ages ago. If he weren’t careful, his body would start metabolizing his fat reserves, of which he had very little, and then it would consume his muscle-

“Stop it. You aren’t starving.” Shiro said as if he knew exactly what Keith had been thinking. “There’s a blood bag in the fridge, the freezer is jammed full of your abominable frozen dinners, and you can always go out and hunt something.” With more frequent human visitors, they’d stopped keeping live meals in the apartment. He adjusted the tension on his bow with his right hand, a crystalline mirror of his left fashioned from dust and old world sorcery, before returning to his despondent rendition of “Dust in the Wind.”

_ Gross. _

He’d endured Kansas for over thirty years, and he wondered if Shiro might ever want to play something else. “When the sun comes up, you’re dust in the wind,” he sang in the most melodramatic timbre he could muster.

Shiro beamed.

Keith smothered his face with a throw pillow, groaning. “How many times have I told you I don’t like chilled blood? And I don’t want to hunt or microwave a meal. I just want my pizza to show up.”

Shiro stopped, bow squealing shrilly over the strings. “I like it when you sing.”

“That has nothing to do with what I just said.”

With an exasperated sigh, Keith willed himself off the sofa, cracking each vertebra up from the small of his back to his neck, stretching his arms and arching his back, fingers spread wide toward the ceiling. It was time to make the call.

Rucking up his t-shirt and scratching his still-grumbling belly, Keith wandered over to the side table and picked up his phone. Dead. He set it back down.

“Can I borrow your phone?”

“I don’t know, can you?”

Keith threw him a glare that struck like knives.

Shiro winced. “Actually, I think I left it in Kolivan’s truck after dinner the other night.”

“Oh.”

Kolivan tried, and while Keith appreciated the effort, he could have tried harder. Shiro had been part of the picture for over a century and a half. Keith was going to marry him. It wasn’t an arguable point.

“Well,” Keith continued, “I’ll talk to him later and see if he found it.”

“Don’t bother.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Keith-”

“He’s going to have to accept you. That’s all there is to it.”

“He bit you.”

“You know, you could try being less judgemental. You didn’t have to get all upset about that.”

“It’s not normal behavior.”

“We’re wolves.” Keith deadpanned. “Besides, he called you a corpse again, and he knows that pisses me off.”

_ “He’s an old man unable to see past his life-long prejudices,” _ was what Shiro wanted to say but wouldn’t, and Keith could hear the retort like a resounding crash of lightning through the thin walls of the apartment.

Keith made his way to the kitchen. Perhaps Shiro had a point. They’d been together for too long for Kolivan not to realize he was stuck with Shiro for the duration. Besides, what werewolf pack wouldn’t want a bona fide vampire on their squad? Even one suffering from such an acute case of social constipation as Shiro.

“Landline comes with our entertainment bundle, right?” Keith asked, squatting down to root through the cabinet beside the sink, pulling out an old rotary phone with half the keys cracked and broken, missing the plastic covers on the ends of the receiver. Somehow this had been overlooked in the great purge predating their move to this wretched apartment, or more likely, it had been left by the previous occupants. Either way, it didn’t matter. He plugged the phone into the wall and held it up to his ear. Jackpot.

Looking over at the stack of pizza boxes waiting for the recycling, he dialed the number to the only place that still serviced their apartment.

“Pizza My Heart from our heart to yours,” Pidge answered in bored monotone, popping her gum.

“Where’s my pizza?” Keith asked, his stomach squealing.

“How’m I supposed to know?” she retorted.

“I’m hungry.”

“Hi, Hungry! I’m Pidge.”

“Shut up.”

“No need to be surly, Mr. Kogane. It’s not like I put a tracking device on the delivery boy.” She paused, then yelled, “Hey Hunk! When did Lance leave?”

Keith didn’t hear the response, but a moment later, Pidge spoke again. “He left an hour and forty-five minutes ago. I dunno where he is.”

He could barely think over her continual chewing. “Where else was he going?”

“Some condo up the street from you, a big house on North Main, the Galra Family Mausoleum, and the old Medieval Times.”

“Medieval Times? You mean the one that’s been abandoned since...” He asked, a knot of anxiety forming in his throat. Not for Lance, he told himself, or because he knew who lived in the dilapidated castle. No, it definitely was not either of those reasons, but because he hadn’t eaten in several hours.

“Yeah, some guy-”

“Who?” Keith demanded, gripping the receiver so hard the plastic handle cracked in his palm. He ignored it.

“Prince something or other,” Pidge replied absently.

“Prince Lotor,” Hunk yelled from the kitchen. That time Keith heard it, loud and clear through the static on the line, the answer he’d been afraid of.

_ Lotor. _

“Yeah, so like the guy’s first name is Prince-” Pidge went on.

“Fuck.”

“Wha?” she said, startled.

“I said, ‘FUCK!’ Fuck me. Fuck my life.” Keith slammed the receiver down against the cradle, the entire phone exploding on impact. Shards of plastic and metal scattered across the kitchen floor like shrapnel in the aftermath of a battle. He stared at the wreckage and the mess he’d now have to clean up.

“Keith!” Shiro called from the family room. “You’re a werewolf, not a swear-wolf!”

“Fuck you!” he snapped back.

Sucking in air, Shiro whistled loudly for effect. “Your linguistic creativity astounds me.”

“Okay, fine. Go masturbate in a dank tomb and deeply consider the implications of immortality to your uncompromising spiritual belief in a cycle of death, rebirth, and karma.”

“Wow. That was… excessive… and low. Even for you,” Shiro called back.

“So what if my vocabulary isn’t as loquacious as some people’s?” he grumbled. “At least profanity never hurt anyone.” He needed to pull himself together and think. Undirected anger only ever wrought more grief.  _ Breathe _ . “Besides, you can’t tell a Buddhist vampire to go to Hell.”

Shiro appeared in the doorway, surveying the remains of the old telephone. “This isn’t about the pizza anymore. What’s going on?”

“ _ Lotor _ has Lance.” He glanced up at Shiro, locked to his limitless eyes, chewing the corner of his lip.

“What?” Shiro cried, processing the revelation as his brows knit together in surprised concern.

Keith closed his eyes, inhaled, and then slowly let out his breath. “Yes, and  _ Lance _ has my pizza.”

+++

Pulling up to the crumbling building in the abandoned shopping center that once housed the illustrious establishment known nation-wide as Medieval Times, Keith parked behind the run-down Ford Probe with the BLU LION tags. Kicking down the stand with his bare foot, he swung his leg over the back of the bike, landing lightly on his toes. The monolithic concrete structure stood before him, presently resembling a rock face more than a castle, but who was checking? The chain tournament and dinner was among the last of the businesses to move out after most had already vacated the surrounding strip mall due to a series of hauntings that drove off both clients and staff. A series of exorcists were brought in to put an end to the supernatural occurrences, yet they’d been unanimously unsuccessful.

If they had perhaps realized that the resident spook was not a spook at all but a narcissistic werepire who wanted to occupy the castle and rebrand the shopping center as his kingdom, they still wouldn’t have been able to run him out.

He, this so-called Prince Lotor, had eaten every one.

In Keith’s estimation, Lotor was, for lack of better words, a mistake. A mistake he tried very hard to avoid. 

Regardless, he was here for the pizza, and the pizza was in Lance’s car. He could smell it from where he stood, the sweet lingering aroma over a savory base.

If he ate it before he got home, he might even be able to avoid Shiro’s beratement for having consumed so much dairy without first taking his Lactaid.

He could hear the rebuke.  _ “Twenty minutes like clockwork, Keith! Why do you insist on eating it if you know it gives you the runs?” _

_ At least I’m regular. _

Come to think of it, he had a box of Lactaid in one of his saddlebags. Shiro made sure he was prepared for everything.

Standing perfectly still, he listened, then crept quietly toward a window, pressing his ear against the blacked out glass. He recognized the phony nasal accent.

“Hold on, what was that?”

“What was what?” Lance asked. “Come on, I have other deliveries to make. We can talk all about ‘The Face Book’ and ‘The Instantaneous Photograms’ when I’m done for the night. Just... It’s too dark in here, and I’m sweating. It’s really uncomfortable. This whole thing is stressing me out.”

“No. We’re going to finish now. Funny, I thought for sure I heard an engine cut outside.”

“Look, just forget about it. Focus! Let’s take another picture for your profile. Then I’ll show you where to get a selfie stick, and we’ll order one so you can start doing it yourself.”

“Ah yes! Let’s do that.”

Backing away from the building, Keith shuddered, goosebumps so proud he had to rub his arms. Steeling his resolve, he padded toward the door, slowing as he approached the passenger door of Lance’s car. Surely he could eat first and then grab Lance. It seemed his favorite pizza courier was doing an excellent job of holding his ground anyway. A few more minutes wouldn't hurt.

He tried the handle, receiving only resistance. He tried the driver’s side door, then the trunk. Nothing. Keith shoved his short, grimy nails up under the flashing in an attempt to pry down the windows.

“Come on!” He stamped his foot in consternation then knocked quietly on the window. “Hey, can I have my pizza?” The car refused to open. Peering inside, he saw the keys jammed into the ignition, the insulated pizza warmer left abandoned on the passenger seat. Squinting a little, he read the swaths of receipts littering the floor like the confetti aftermath of a massacred  piñata . Fast food, from the only 24-hour drive-thru open after Lance got off work.

Was it possible he got tired eating pizza every day?

_ Who could get tired of pizza every day? _

Keith patted the roof. “What do I have to do to convince you to give me my pizza?”

The headlights flashed, and a shrill fizz erupted from under the hood that gradually crescendoed to a piercing whistle.

_ Are you kidding me? _

Keith walked around to the front of the vehicle, feet apart and one hand at his waist, hipshot, staring down the mechanical beast. He’d never met a more stubborn familiar. Draping himself across the hood, the engine rumbled to life beneath him, a low, guttural moan, the message loud and clear. The Blue Lion wanted one thing and one thing only: Lance returnedin the same condition he’d left or better.

Forehead to the hot metal, he whispered, “Fine. I’ll get him first, but I’m warning you when we leave that building, you’d better be delivering up the goods, or you’re going to find you picked the wrong fight.”

“Keith,” Shiro called, walking up to meet him from across the street. He’d dropped the artifice of his missing hand. “Don’t threaten her like that.”

“I’m not going to just eat and run.”

Shiro eyed him skeptically.

“Lance is like, our pup,” he continued, “You know, if we had pups, I guess. I’m not going to leave him there for Lotor to munch on, but dammit, I’m hungry!”

“I told you earlier - you could have eaten anything at home, or you know, now that you’re out of the house-”

“That’s not the point,” Keith interrupted. “I wanted that pizza, and I’m going to eat that pizza.” With that he turned toward the looming fiberglass doors, molded to resemble the oversized iron banded entrance of a Medieval fortress. Shoving hard near the center, the lock burst free, and the doors swung wide, smashing into the interior walls with a loud crack. Backlit by streetlamps, his shadow loomed, cutting through the dead silence.

He didn’t wait for Shiro to follow.

“Lance!” he yelled, sprinting through the silt and grit collected on the floor expunging all evidence of footprints in his hurry. The empty gift shop echoed with the ghosts of patrons long since gone. The princess’ throne, it’s legacy shared with the vermin and moths now calling it home, spewed stuffing from holes in once-plush velveteen splendor.

He sniffed, his nose filling with so much dust he violently sneezed several times, taking in more of the polluted air and coughing as he wiped his nose on the sleeve of his threadbare t-shirt.

“In here!” Lance called.

Keith stood immobile, listening. His ears twitched from the stirred up debris. Dust motes danced in a wash of moonglow from a row of clerestory windows. The reply had come from somewhere past crushed and dented suits of soft metal armor arranged in the throes of certain death, haphazardly paused in suspended animation. Paint blistered and peeled off the walls like thousands of eggshells ready to fall and scatter across the floor. Faux weaponry clung valiantly to the walls with the tenacity of barnacles, and banners served as waypoints for diligent spiders, building their nests high above in the rafters. He pulled the neck of his shirt up over his nose and tried once more to scent Lance out, finally catching the trail of his heady musk wafting out from beneath a hanging sign labeled in a stiff, uneven script, “The Oubliette.”

Caution to the wind, he ran inside the dungeon exhibit, jumping the turnstile and skidding to a stop. There before him at the center of the room sat Lance. He had arranged himself cross-legged on a cheap prop replica of the Iron Throne with most of the blade tips broken off the rear crest, bent over a smartphone. Beside him, in an immaculate suit of purple satin with black velveteen accents, Lotor snapped his head toward the intruder, tossing his magnificent mane of platinum hair. His eyes flashed, a jaundiced yellow as he stared through the heavy darkness.

“Keith!” Lance exclaimed, forcing a smile and clapping his hands together, letting the phone fall in his lap. “Thank the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost you’ve come to save me!” He crossed himself the light from the fallen phone bathing his face from below.

Lotor cringed, grinding his teeth together, attention diverted by the phone. “Be careful with that!”

Lance waved him off, “It’s fiiiiine. That’s why we just bought you the screen protector and heavy duty fall-proof case. With Prime, it should get here tomorrow afternoon.”

“Where’s your spare key?” Keith asked, making the conscious decision to ignore Lotor altogether.

“Uh, in the car. Why?”

Keith’s shoulders fell. “Who leaves the spare key in the car? It’s locked,” he mumbled, “and I’m hungry.”

Lotor cleared his throat menacingly, “Excuse you.”

Keith refused to even look at him. Hands on his hips, he waited for Lance’s reply.

Scratching his head and mussing his fine, chestnut hair, Lance pursed his lips in thought. “It always just sort of opens for me. Have you tried prayer? Holy Water? ‘Please?’”

“Hey!” Lotor shoved Keith hard in the shoulder, causing him to shift his balance, pivoting around from the assault. “I’m talking to you. Do you always enter people’s homes uninvited?”

Scowling, Keith savagely brushed off the pale hand. “Look, I’m having a conversation here. His familiar is holding my pizza hostage. This has nothing to do with you.” He turned back to Lance. “Prayer? Holy Water?”

“Ye- oh. Do you believe in God? I mean, it’s not going to work if you don’t believe, though Holy Water comes pre-blessed. It’s just, well, I’m kind of, uhm,” Lance unfolded his legs, shaking out the shackles on his ankles that tethered him to the chair, “detained?” He grimaced, throwing up his hands and letting his palms smack flat against the resin-cast armrests.

In his stubborn naivety, Keith had hoped he would be able to collect Lance and leave. Perhaps the occupant of this dilapidated edifice, pleased with having wrested it from the joy of hapless middle-class families looking for some anachronistic fun  à  la “A Knight’s Tale” or “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” would be satisfied with that achievement and leave him and Shiro well enough alone. Keith knew there was etiquette among vampires, even spurned hybrid ones,for maintaining civility and order. The protective law marked Lance. No one could possibly be stupid enough to harm him.

No matter how good he smelled.

And he sure did smell good. Keith shook his head and ignored the hollow feeling in his gut.

Indomitable fury bled inward from the periphery of Keith's vision as he spun abruptly on his heel, hackles up, attention fully focused on Lotor. "Explain," he demanded, the word grating on his teeth, sharp and bared.

Lotor folded his arms tightly across his chest, respiring deeply and lazily casting his eyes with longing toward Lance before cutting abruptly down to Keith. “He’s helping me build my profiles on social mediums. By the way, Lance, you can post that on my Tittering account.”

“It’s called Twitter,” Lance called back, picking up the phone.

“What does that have to do with why you have him manacled to the FUCKING IRON THRONE?” Keith barked, edging closer, energy wound and ready to unfurl as he closed his stance, eyes narrowed.

“Language?” Shiro interrupted from the entry, placating and calm. He set a grocery bag beside the turnstile before pushing through.

Keith heard him, smelled the desiccated husk of his physical form, but gave no indication that he did. He only wondered why Shiro had taken so long to follow.

Casually adjusting his cuffs and daubing at his neck with a monogrammed handkerchief, Lotor shook his head. “Is this really happening? Look. I gave him some cash, and he’s helping me out. I mean, fine, it’s true, I’ll probably eat him later, he is quite the delectable morsel, but right now he’s much more useful alive.”

Lance pulled a wad of cash out of a pocket and rifled the bills. “He actually pays me,” he said, hurling the pointed accusation unapologetically at Keith. “I’m pretty sure this will cover my rent for the next six months.” 

“That’s just ‘cause you can’t run away.”

Shiro quirked a brow, “ Touché .”

A low rumble issued forth from the depths of Keith’s diaphragm, over the impatient whine of his empty stomach.

Lance exhaled with a groan. “Keith, I’m joking. He’s just trying to get you all riled up. He’s  _ not _ going to eat me.”

“Might I remind you, Shiro hasn’t eaten you yet. I wonder why that is?” Lotor declared, snapping his head around and lifting his chin to stare down his long, aquiline nose at Shiro, who had draped himself languorously over the back of the model Iron Throne.

Shiro picked at his cuticles, then reached down to ruffle Lance’s hair, side-eyeing Lotor. “What I choose to do with my food is not your concern.”

Lance squirmed and batted Shiro’s hand aside. “I have a name,” he said, but only Keith was listening, eyeing him with a sharp twitch of a brow. 

_ Shut up and play along. _

“Well, then perhaps I’ll take a taste-” Lotor began, tucking a lock of silvery hair behind his ear.

“You will not so much as touch Shiro’s dinner” Keith barked, unable to contain himself. Tendons stretched taut and veins stood proud, roping over his arms and the backs of his hands. “If you lay a hand on him, I will destroy you. If you so much as salivate, I will destroy you. If he tells me that you did anything to make him fear for his personal safety, I will end you so fast you won’t have the time to reconstitute the foul carcass that houses your immortal soul before I damn you to the hell from whence I gave you this life.” Keith finished, forehead pressed up against Lotor’s, moisture from his hands dripping onto the floor as he breathed heavily through his mouth.

“HOLD IT! You what?” Lance shrieked, attempting to jump off the chair but the chains of his fetters held fast, and he fell face first onto the stone laminate below.

"It's regrettable." Shiro stepped around the chair. Cracking his massive shoulders, he leaned back against the armrest and crossed his ankles with feigned indifference.

“Do we have to talk about this now?” Keith grumbled.

Lotor rolled his eyes. “Dinner? Keith, that,” Lotor thrust his hand out toward Lance, “is hardly what I would call dinner, but Shiro never does eat enough, does he? That’s why he’s got that little performance issue.” He cut his gaze pointedly to Shiro’s groin, conspicuously peering through layers of fine garments with his eyes, raising his brows at Shiro’s warm blush. “No, I think this one’s more like a snack.”

Keith growled. “Of course he’s a  _ snack _ ! You say that like you’ve never smelled one before.”

Twisting around and looking up, one delicate, bronze hand flew to Lance’s chest. “Be still my beating heart. I had no idea you felt that way about me!”

Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose, the gesture still ingrained though he had likely not experienced a sinus headache in centuries. “It’s not a compliment.”

“You might not think so, but I do.” Lance twisted around and snapped the plastic cuffs off his ankles, rubbing at his legs and climbing back up onto the throne.

Keith blinked, Lotor huffed, and Shiro picked up one of the shackles, crushing the replica in his palm with a frown.

“Did I mention how much pleasure I’ll take in consuming your still-beating heart once I’ve crunched through your ribcage and torn it from your ravaged corpse with my mouth?” Keith said, speaking with the impassivity of obvious stalemate.

“Do you have to be so graphic?” Lotor returned, brows raised high on his forehead. He blew a lock of hair out of his eyes. It fell back in his face.

“What was graphic about it? I didn’t say a word about blood or gore, or-”

“We get it.” Shiro patted him on the back. “Let’s go home. Come on, Lance.”

“What about my profiles?” Lotor exclaimed as Lance hopped down, leaving the phone on the chair and walking around the opposite end of the room toward the entrance, shuffling to avoid tripping in the dark.

“You can come too.” Shiro held up his grocery bag. “I got my hands on some O negative from the donation clinic.”

“Shiro!” Keith rasped, somewhere above a whisper. “You can’t just invite another vampire into our home!”

“Keith, must I remind you, he’s also a werewolf? Besides, we made him, that means, one, threshold rules don’t apply, and two, we are partially responsible for his well-being.” Shiro squeezed Keith’s shoulder and rubbed his back with one strong hand.

“He can take care of himself!” Keith grumbled back, displeasure ripe on a sour frown as he licked his lips, hungrily.

“I kindly accept your offer,” Lotor grinned menacingly at Keith.

“I wish you’d stayed dead!” spittle flying off the vehemence of Keith’s words.

“Yes, well, who was it that decided to make the son of the Lich King their midnight meal?” Lotor hurled back in riposte, flinging his hair over his shoulder and smoothing his jacket.

“You smelled just like a human, Mongrel.” Keith hissed, straining against Shiro’s partial embrace.

“Shhhh! Let it go.” Shiro kissed his temple and smoothed his hair. “And you,” he addressed Lotor, “Need to stop provoking him before I rescind the invitation.”

“Do you remember hunting him down?” Keith glanced up to Shiro’s eyes, full of endless perpetuity. Crisis averted, he gave himself up to the comfort of Shiro’s gentle touch. “The way you caressed his jugular with your tongue before sinking into his  _ pappy _ flesh. Watching you was pure ecstasy.” He coaxed Shiro’s face down to his own and pressed his lips against Shiro’s, cool and chiseled, one of the few soft edges left to him by the clutch of eternity. It was almost as if by giving him breath, Shiro could, for just a moment experience life again. Keith craved giving as much as Shiro did receiving, locked mouth to mouth in each other’s embrace.

“Like a rare white buck.” Shiro uttered between fervent kisses, fingers entangled in Keith’s moppy hair.

“Mmmhmm,” Keith hummed, unable to speak, both hands having disappeared down the back of Shiro’s trousers, guiding him into the shadows. He still wanted his pizza, but he wanted this more.

“Do I have to watch this?” Lotor gagged.

“Yeah, looks like a party for two.” Lance sighed, sauntering through the turnstile. “And we weren’t invited. Hey Keith?”

A soft grunt of acknowledgment came from the dark corner where only Shiro’s back was now visible. 

“Can I give you the pizza here? I still have three more deliveries to make tonight.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have nothing to say. I like writing Keith as an irrational disaster wolf.


End file.
